Eventide is softly casting o'er the earth a magic spell,

And a love-song, everlasting, on the night wind seems to swell.

There's a reason for the world. For you, for I, for the wilting flower whose petals curl brown and lifeless and tear away at a tug of ruthless wind. A reason for sorrow, a reason for joy, a reason why Erthë couldn't run and tumble with the twins even though the sight of them caused her blood to thaw and made her remember what it was to be a child. Oh, surely there was a reason, and if she bothered to think about it for a while the filly might even be able to figure out what it was. But right now she wasn't in the mood for philosophical monologues. She felt grumpy, clumsy, slow and old, life was unfair and she couldn't stand listening to the sound of laughing children anymore.

Snorting angrily to herself she stomped away from the happy little family, wreaking havoc where she bustled through shrubs and thickets. For once she found no comfort in the kaleidoscope of butterflies she startled into the air, nor in the swarming fireflies that drifted on the balmy evening air. Pain was, as always, eating on her good mood and to make matters worse her whole body crawled and itched with a new kind of discomfort, caused by none other than the very remedy she used to stave off that same pain. It had become an evil circle, a spiraling black tunnel where her problems only seemed to grow, in number and severity until no light could guide her towards the end anymore.

It wasn't in her nature to whine, but tonight the milky hybrid didn't feel like being mature, wise, strong or brave. She wanted to feel small and helpless, wanted to huddle in the shadow of someone wiser, stronger and more capable than herself. Someone who could take all her worries and thoughts and deal with them, so she wouldn't have to.

With a patience rarely seen she searched through the Edge for the one person she could entrust all this to. He was hard to find at the best of times, but unless he'd left again after the meeting Erthë knew he had to be around somewhere. Every glade, every clearing and grove, every nook and cranny of every cliff and dale was searched, until finally her father's gleaming figure could be found parting the gloom beneath the trees.

"Hi daddy" she trilled as she made her way over to him, pleased to have found him at last. "What are you doing?" In a somewhat unusual display of affection she slithered in beneath Vadim's neck and wrapped her wings around him, aggressively unconcerned as to whether she was disrupting anything. Nothing should be more important to him than her anyway, and if it was then she'd have to sort out his priorities for him right away.

It was the hug that brought certain things to light for the girl. First of all she didn't have to reach as much as before to embrace the tall stallion. Unnoticed by herself, time had worked its steady magic on her body; stretched the legs and the wings, filled out rump and shoulders and neck until she no longer looked fragile enough to break with a careless glance. Though still short and lithe of built, there was something decidedly willowy about her now, clues whispering of approaching puberty. It was in the locks of moon-bright hair that curled down the arch of neck, in the smooth porcelain horns that cupped blue-tinted cheeks and extended the line of a finely chiseled face into something almost elegant, expressive, sultry, coiling with the long lioness tail and rustling over silky wings.

Though teetering on the brink of adulthood however, though no longer entirely a child, Erthë wasn't so mature that she understood where all these signs pointed. She was just glad to have inched a little closer to her father's impressive height, and there was a certain smugness about her as she smiled up at him, hoping he would notice too.